


tore my shirt to stop you bleeding

by ShyAudacity



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Archie Andrews Needs a Hug, Archie has good friends thats it thats the fic, Blood and Injury, Domestic Fluff, Episode Related, Episode: s03e05 Chapter Forty: The Great Escape, Everyone Needs A Hug, Hurt Archie Andrews, Hurt/Comfort, Mentioned First Aid, Multi, Queerplatonic Relationships, Recovery, Rescue Missions, Season/Series 03, Worried Jughead Jones, a lot of characters are just mentioned okay sorry, also ot3 if u squint just saying, amongst other things, could be gay if u squint, field medicine, just a little at the end, over use of italics maybe, too tired to tag the ep for real sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 19:49:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16646612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShyAudacity/pseuds/ShyAudacity
Summary: Archie loses his footing halfway down, lands on his hands and knees with all the grace of an injured baby deer. The hardwood beneath his skin comes as a surprise; reality is fading away from him quicker than he’d like to admit. Archie presses his hand to his side again, all the colors swirling together as he looks up.Jughead is in front of him, eyes wide and arms outstretched, coming towards him. Archie sags as tender arms come around him, letting his face fall into Jughead’s shoulder.“Oh- oh my god,Arch.”ORA fic centered around Archie (and others) in 3x05, post-rescue.





	tore my shirt to stop you bleeding

**Author's Note:**

> I really wasn't going to write this, I swear, I told myself I wouldn't. I blame tumblr user fredheads for this- Julia, I love you and I hope this is what you were looking forward to. 
> 
> Unbeta'd and title from When The Party's Over by billie eilish.

Forcing himself to stay upright and fight Mad Dog after getting stabbed by Joaquin is hard.

Crawling through a drain that reeks like piss and someone else’s mess is hard, but at least Betty’s on the other side; a shining light at the end of a dark tunnel.

_What took you so long? -I could ask you the same thing!_

Keeping a hand pressed to his bleeding side while hobbling through the unfamiliar woods barefoot with only Veronica to hold him up is hard, but they manage.

Focusing on not blacking out or leaving a stain in the back seats of Reggie’s _too fancy for Riverdale_ car is hard. 

Descending a ladder that leads to only god knows where is hard- and he can’t even do that, it would seem.

Archie loses his footing halfway down, lands on his hands and knees with all the grace of an injured baby deer. The hardwood beneath his skin comes as a surprise; reality is fading away from him quicker than he’d like to admit. Archie presses his hand to his side again, all the colors swirling together as he looks up.

Jughead is in front of him, eyes wide and arms outstretched, coming towards him. Archie sags as tender arms come around him, letting his face fall into Jughead’s shoulder.  

“Oh- oh my god, _Arch_.”

As his senses finally leave him, the last thing on Archie’s mind before he passes out is: _oh good, Jughead’s here, he’ll know what to do. He always knows what to do._

**///**

Jughead is still coming out of his G&G induced stupor when Archie _literally_ falls from the sky. It feels like a dream; like maybe he won the game somehow.

 _This is it,_ he thinks, a voice calling from somewhere in the back of his mind, _this is what the ascension looks like. This is everything that I’ve been working for._

He gives himself two seconds of just looking at Archie, taking a hold of his surroundings again, eyes falling to the growing red stain of Archie’s side, his limp arm just barely holding it all in.

The sight of it sobers him in a second.

“Jughead?” Someone says behind him.

He looks over his shoulder, and all the party members- the serpents, _his team_ \- are all waiting with bated breath, variating levels of concern upon their faces. Jughead can hear the commotion coming from up above, Kevin or someone else asking if Archie made it down okay.

Jughead looks down at Archie’s slack face, slowly sliding down his shoulder, and realizes that things will go bad- get even worse if he doesn’t do something. They can’t stay here forever, much as he might like to.

Jughead plants his feet on the ground, bracing Archie against his frame as he stands up.

“Clear the bed,” he says, trying to sound firm, “Find a first aid kit, there has to be one around here somewhere.”

Even as Jughead lays him onto the small bed, he still can’t believe that this is happening, that Archie’s really  _here_. He holds Archie’s head in his lap, just looking at him for now, barely noticing that the room is twice as full as it was a minute ago. Betty appears over his shoulder, saying something that Jughead only halfway hears.

“What?”

“I said we need to get the dirt and all these clothes off of him… are you okay, Jug?”

Jughead looks back at Archie’s _too still_ body, panic-stricken by the thought of him staying this way.

“Yeah, yeah I’m good,” he says, numbly, “Just help him.”

As Betty and Toni start cutting him out of his clothes, Jughead rubs his thumb over Archie’s jawline- to keep him calm should he come to- but also to give _himself_ something tangible, to prove that all of this is actually real.

_I didn’t think I'd be seeing you again so soon, pal._

Jughead watches Archie’s eye begin to flutter just as Toni starts wiping all of the mess off of him.  

**///**

Archie comes to at some point while they’re cleaning him off, the cool feeling of a wet cloth being moved across his skin in gentle sweeps almost luring him back under. Someone is touching his face, holding his hair away from his forehead, then moving back to his jaw again.

He sighs, then regrets it, groaning- the pain in his side just as evident as it was before. It takes him a minute, but once he finally gets his eyes open, he finds himself looking right up at Jughead, familiar blues eyes looking back down at him.

_He’s still here, that’s a relief._

“Jugh’d.” He tries, the sound barely leaving his lips.

“Hey, Archie,” Jughead replies, quiet and just for him. “That was quite he the escape you made, big guy.”

Archie hums a little.

_Right, the escape. That’s how I got here… wherever here is._

Thinking of the escape plan reminds him of something else, he’s barely an inch off the mattress before Jughead has a hand in the center of his bare chest, keeping him from sitting up.

“ _Easy_ , easy there, Arch. It’s probably best you didn’t do that right now.”

“But- Betty, and Ronnie-.”

“They’re here,” Jughead assures him, softly. “They’re all here.”

Sure enough, when Archie tilts his head back, Betty is standing over Jughead’s shoulder, Veronica on her other side, both of them just watching him carefully. He smiles tiredly up at them.

“Hi.”

“Hey, handsome,” Veronica says sweetly. “We’re glad to have you back.”

 _It’s good to be back_ , he almost says, then decides against- that’s a little too cliché, even for him.

Archie fades in and out of lucidness for a while after that, only sort of feels it when Toni sticks a needle in his side, patching him up. Jughead moves out from under him at some point, trading his lap out for a flimsy excuse for a pillow. He answers questions as best he can when they come, tells them all about Joaquin and the warden, tries to resist when Veronica wants to give him a _babysitter_ of all things.

“Ronnie, I don’t need anyone-.”

“ _Yes,_ you do.”

“You go ahead, V,” Betty says, sure of herself. “Jughead and I will take the first shift.”

Well, it looks like there’s no winning that battle.

Everyone else clears out not too long after; Veronica kisses his forehead before she leaves, making Betty promise to call if anything changes. Once every else is gone, Betty sits at the foot of the bed while Jughead stays near Archie’s shoulders, both of them keeping a vigil watch.

“You guys really don’t need to stay here.” Archie says, voice raspy, “I’ll be just fine by myself.”

 “No way, Arch. You’d do the same for us.” Betty tells him. “This is what family does, don’t try to fight it.”

He can’t really argue with that logic, now can he.

Both of them keep talking to him while he drifts off, and Archie wonders for a split second just how lucky he has to be that _this is his life_. That this group of people not only rallied around him but _stayed_ when things got hard. What a miracle is it to find someone who would give everything they have for one who isn’t even their blood; how gracious that love must be, to be shared amongst many then given back in return.  

_I can never thank them enough for something as great as this… they make coming home so easy._

**///**

Betty leaves for an hour to get food for her and Jughead, as well as something for Archie in the morning if he’s feeling up to it, as well as a bottle of painkillers. Getting stabbed is no small thing.

When she comes back, the bunker is dead quiet- makes her nervous for a second before she peers around the corner.  

Archie is still asleep, but his arm is dangling off the cot, unbeknownst to him. Jughead is sitting upright against the wall, but also sleeping, no less- just as blind to the fact that Betty’s even returned. One of his hands is in his lap, the other intertwined with Archie’s, their knuckles grazing the floor.  

Betty can’t help but smile at the sight.

She sits on the ground across from Jughead, one of her legs pressed against the outside of his thigh. Betty leans against the cot, wrapping her hand around Archie’s knee, mostly for her own piece of mind. She stays like that for hours, touching them both, just keeping guard while they sleep.She already knows that she’d do this all again in a heartbeat, anything for the people she cares about.

They deserve at least that much.

**Author's Note:**

> I only slept three-ish hours last night then woke up at five and haven't slept at all since and it's eleven at night. I've been sitting in front of my computer for like four hours so I don't even know if this is coherent or not I'm sorry.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments/Kudos are encouraged and appreciated. You can leave a prompt if you want. I'm on tumblr as archieandrewsprotectionsquad. Thanks again for reading, have a great day!


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